The Impacts Of Conventional Cat And Dog Food - Faunalytics (2024)

Research shows that conventional meat-based diets contribute to animal welfare and environmental harms. However, solutions to the problem, such as switching to a vegan food system, often focus only on humans and human diets.

In addition to humans, most companion cats and dogs regularly consume animal products despite the growing evidence that they can thrive on a plant-based diet. With an estimated global population of 373 million dogs and 471 million cats as of 2018, the author of this paper point out that so-called “pet food” is likely contributing significantly to animal slaughter and environmental damage.

This study aims to compare the impact of conventional cat food, dog food, and human diets in terms of how many farmed animals are slaughtered as well as various environmental impacts (e.g., GHG emissions and water use). The author also explore the benefits that would occur for animals, the environment, and world hunger if all cats, dogs, and humans switched to a fully vegan diet. They looked at companion animals and humans both within the U.S. (which is known to have a large population of cats and dogs) using data from 2020 and globally using data from 2018.

To quantify the overall impact of cat and dog food, the researchers first had to make several calculations, including the average size and energy consumption for cats and dogs (bearing in mind that dogs come in many different sizes) and the average ingredients found within their food. They then applied these estimates to the total U.S. population and global population of dogs and cats. Similarly, they used U.K. dietary recommendations and animal-based dietary data from the UN FAO to calculate the average energy requirements for humans and then applied these estimates to the total population of humans within the U.S. and globally.

Animal Slaughter

The author found that around 53% of all cat and dog food ingredients are animal products. Annually, over 1.95 billion land animals are killed for cat and dog food within the U.S. and 6.96 billion globally. For humans, this number is 7.8 billion within the U.S. and 71.3 globally. Chickens may benefit the most if cats and dogs were to go vegan, as they are the greatest casualty at over 1.9 billion killed in the U.S. and 6.6 billion globally for companion animal food.

Dogs are a greater consumer of animal products than cats with over 6 billion of the 6.9 billion land animals slaughtered globally being used for dog food. Note that these figures apply to farmed land animals — the author note that it was difficult to determine the number of individual aquatic animals killed for companion and human food, although they predict that cats and dogs in the U.S. consume billions of fishes per year.

Environmental Impacts

According to the study, dog and cat diets have a relatively higher impact on the environment than human diets because they tend to consume a higher percentage of animal products. The author calculated that livestock sector environmental impacts would be reduced by the following amounts, if dogs and cats were to go vegan:

• Land use could be reduced by around 17% in the U.S. and 8% globally.
• Freshwater use could be reduced by 6.5% in the U.S. and 3% globally.
• Greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 15% in the U.S. and 7% globally.

Stated differently, if dogs and cats went vegan on a global scale, it would free up an area of land larger than Argentina and reduce the amount of freshwater use equivalent to all renewable water in Gambia. Meanwhile, global vegan human diets would spare an area of land larger than Russia and India combined and more freshwater than Cuba’s entire renewable water supply. Meanwhile, vegan cat and dog diets would spare more emissions than what Australia produces, while vegan human diets would save more than what the E.U. emits.

Feeding Additional Humans And Animals

If farmed animals aren’t used for food, then the resources they convert into energy could hypothetically, according to the author, be used to feed other humans and animals. The study found that, should cats and dogs in the U.S. be fed a plant-based diet, an additional 27% of the U.S. human population could be fed. If cats and dogs went vegan globally, an additional 7% of the global human population could be fed.

Comparatively, if cats and dogs went vegan around the world, nearly 1.5 billion cats and dogs could be fed additionally using the dietary energy saved by excluding farmed animals from the food system.

Advocacy Takeaways

The study has a few limitations, including the fact that the author relied on estimates for population sizes, diets, and the amount of calories needed for dogs, cats, and humans. In reality, it’s hard to know exactly how many cats and dogs exist at any point in time, as well as exactly what they eat (and how much). The study also didn’t account for impacts across the entire production cycle of companion animal food, including transportation, processing, and other important steps that can generate harmful outputs.

The findings suggest that nutritionally-sound vegan diets for cats and dogs could have a large, positive impact on both the number of animals slaughtered annually and the environmental consequences of companion animal food. Animal advocates can use this information to remind animal guardians that taking care of their companions shouldn’t harm other animals in the process — especially when there are nutritionally adequate, balanced vegan diet options available.